Translated from the Odia by Rohan Kar
Twin sisters- Neera and Jini. Nurses. Spinsters. And there’s Tutu–their adopted son, a not-so-distant cousin’s child. Neera and Jini–as is one, so is the other. In tow, they’ve led remarkably similar lives, nurturing immense fondness for one another along the way. Anointed by the ideal of selfless service, both have devoted themselves wholly to their patients, entirely content with regretting life’s many other invitations.
As drift after drift propels one further even than the moorings of the future, the mind inevitably waddles through the dense conclusivity of the twilight years. An inertia sets in, sharp and frank. One asks the other, “What do we do when we are old and blind?”
The other responds frankly, “What’s the point of thinking so far ahead? It’ll be quite something if we get to turn old in the first place! No one lives to be more than thirty around here… and if you do manage to make it that far, it’ll be as good as having one foot in the grave”.
A buoyant smile threatens to upstage their inertia. Why must our years, uncertain as they are, also bear the cross of joyless musings?
∗
The years push on, their strides detached and diligent. Like a winged beast, they soar until they are no more than an unintelligible, swirling speck against the yawning sky.
Tutu is now a thirty-year-old man. And the sisters, twice as old as he. Their idleness is no longer theirs alone, its intimacies extending loyally to the days gone by. Plenty has come to pass over these past few years. Plenty of patients have made complete recoveries in their care. Plenty have breathed their last, too. Whether through insolent tears or profound sighs, the sisters have, honorably as ever, presided over it all.
Now, the sisters are pensioners. Their vision is bleak, nearly obscured by cataracts. Their glasses grow thicker by the day. They must rest. Every day, after wrestling themselves free from their chores, Neera and Jini settle into the two shiftless chairs, unrelenting companions of their verandah. Out of instinct, these chairs have learnt to suppress their creaking. Once seated, the air between the sisters takes on numerous colors. Launching one another into the indistinct swells of their past, they glean echoes, whispers, and silences. How swiftly have the years gone by! And Tutu…they must find a suitable girl for him. Tutu…once their oasis, now incurably arid. Tutu…their one great sadness. All his responsibilities rest squarely on them, including his marriage. Long before he turned thirty, Tutu used to be Neera and Jini’s sweet little boy, their spotless babe. Little did they know then that their boy would go on to have a deeply fraught relationship with his education. The sisters sought feverishly to see Tutu march into a dignified office, wishing on him the unlabored breathing of a high-ranking officer. All they could do, eventually, was watch him veer away painfully from this portrait. Still, he was their sweet little boy. Try as they might, they simply couldn’t raise their voices at him. Every time a spark came itching, it also brought along a fierce current of guilt– why, weren’t they the ones who had taken him away from his parents? Without them, Tutu would be but an orphan.
Of course, Tutu is a rascal. But that won’t get in the way of him getting married. In fact, the very thought animates the sisters. This girl, his wife, will deliver them from the household chores. She will take over all their affairs and be responsible for their three square meals. They would simply nurse their waning vision; that’s all they would have to do.
The days rolled on. The two chairs on the verandah grew even muted. Perched on them, the twins never seemed to take their eyes off the road–so many people…
∗
One day, Neera told Jini, “I don’t think I have many days left in me”.
“Who’s to say?” replied Jini on the heels of a long, drawn-out sigh.
“We’re not getting any stronger…if we don’t kick the bucket now…it’s only going to get worse from hereon”.
“Yeah, I feel dizzy almost all the time”.
“I can’t see very well. Did I tell you?”
“Yes”.
Silence crept upon Neera’s lips.
The fog upon the sister’s vision was steadily becoming denser. Every rummage through the betel box paraphernalia presented only one certainty now–of their hands brushing against one another.
Holding each other’s opaque gaze, Neera and Jini remain as sisterly as ever. Whatever pitiably little is left of their vision will soon be gone, too. Bit by bit, their resolve grows weaker.
∗
“Tutu, are you smoking? Should you be wasting money like that? …okay, listen…when are you going to get married? We can barely manage anymore…we could use an extra pair of hands…besides, the maid can’t cook for us forever, right?”Neera looked expectantly at Tutu.
“Why, is he serving you leftovers?”
They broke into laughter, a streak of light peering through the haze in their eyes.
“Oho, where are you going?”
“I’m listening”. Tutu halted reluctantly, puffing on his cigarette.
”Your aunt fell hard on her butt today. She was trying to grope her way over here”.
”Do you want me to give her a massage?”
”Of course not. You’re always pulling our leg”.
”Okay, okay.” Tutu went off.
The sisters turned to face each other. Even with their blurry vision, they could distinctly perceive each other’s anguish.
Then, Jini said, “Listen, I’ve been thinking…this boy is a complete loafer…he can’t make a single penny…why bother with his marriage?”
Neera interjected, “Won’t he figure out something eventually?”
“Who would want to marry their daughter here? What do we even have? Plus, our boy isn’t exactly a catch!”
Neera prefaced her response with a deep breath, “Who will care for us then? Our eyes have already given up on us…sometimes I wish we had married…our children…they would have… We have no one, Jini! How can you forget that?”
Neera’s voice had a pronounced quiver now. A wry smile sat on Jini’s lips.
“Neera, you are so naive! Would your children have restored your vision? You’ve attended to so many people…seen so many elderly parents…so, tell me…did any of their children give them their eyes back?”
Neera responded absent-mindedly, almost involuntarily, “What? How’s that possible? Still, don’t you think those parents were much happier than us? To have your children by your side in your final years is such a blessing, you have to agree…they’re much, much happier than us…you see?”
”What is this happiness you talk of, Neera? Don’t our eyes come clenching tears into this world? Then we depart much the same way! Man comes about in grief, and to grief alone he concedes himself…his existence, most wretched…and here you are, harping about happiness like a raving lunatic?”
Bearing a pitiful smile, Neera said, “You are wrong, Jini…I’ve seen many a happy soul in my life…so have you, I’m sure”.
Neera expected a pause. Jini saw no need for it.
“Oh, I have, indeed. That is, if you deem every smiling face to be happy. Then, I’ve seen countless of them. Lightning, no matter how brilliant its flash, always conceals thunder…don’t you know? The spring breeze, though so full of allure, brings with it the malaise of the season…tell me you don’t know this?
Carefully, Jini studied her sister’s face, expecting a response. When Neera continued sitting in the manner of a log, Jini had to lace her words with false compassion.
“We are not sages and hermits…us commoners, we are bonded by our grief…to some it reveals itself as debt, to some, as the daily disruption of the domestic, and to some, as a torn present and a hostile future…but ultimately, it is grief, vast and all-encompassing. Only the fools have the luxury of joy…grief visits them, of course, but fails to distress their memory. In an indiscriminately cruel world, what good is it to despair? You mustn’t lose heart. Take Tutu’s matter for example…it pains us that he couldn’t make anything of himself…but if this had been our own son, wouldn’t your pain have been even sharper? Wouldn’t you have completely lost your mind?”
If Jini’s words were any consolation at all for Neera, it was, no doubt, trifling–like one extending a helping hand to somebody being swept away in the same flood as him.
Neera stood up.
“Let’s go, it is time for our prayers”.
Jini followed her cue. Both began their long trudge back.
∗
Another day.
Afternoon. Tutu is not at home. The sisters set out to count their savings, money they have been putting away for Tutu. He hasn’t been alerted to this yet; it’ll be disclosed to him after they are gone.
They put on their foggy glasses; the grip is poor.
They fish out two small boxes from a trunk. Tutu is away. Only in the clear light of the day can their calculations be accurate. Hands, fighting tremors, eventually manage to put the key in the keyhole. The box opens. It stares back at them; empty. Inside, there are only odd scraps of paper. Panic engulfs the sisters–who took it? Who took the money? The box shuts–who took away all their savings? Their suspicion falls immediately on Tutu–it has to be him.
Tutu is interrogated. He denies the charges outright. Jini attempts to comfort Neera.
“We had set this aside for him, and he only stole it…He will beg for a living…it’s his fate, how can we overturn it?”
Dusk is beginning to give way to night. Sunk in the two chairs, the sisters are overcome by a tempest of thoughts. Clutter and commotion all around, yet it is silence that smothers them.
”Jini, I don’t feel good…”
”What’s wrong?”
Jini looks up hastily at Neera only to realize, that, in urgency, too, she is blind.
”My heart…I think it’ll burst out of me”.
As soon as she utters these words, an ominous bout of breathlessness takes over her.
Rendered stiff by panic, Jini can do nothing except call out to the maid. Then, feeling her way through to Neera, she tries checking her pulse.
It doesn’t take long for the entire neighborhood to gather at the sisters’ house. They spare no moment making themselves busy. First, they splash water on Neera’s face. Only when that doesn’t work, they summon a doctor.
Jini’s restlessness knows no soothing–surely Neera can’t be the first one to go?
Neera never opens her eyes.
There on the bed, stretched along its length, is her lifeless body. Jini’s eyes, at last, reflect their ruin. All this time, she had been the one to assure Neera, but now that she is gone, Jini’s conviction has completely deserted her.
She is blind, numb. All too bankrupt for tears. Neera has stranded her, left her all alone on an endless island!
Just the one ray of hope remains; that rascal Tutu. All of a sudden, Jini can only think of Tutu–the bringer of all their miseries.
She can tell that he is here; the smoke from his cigarette is giving him away. Still, she can’t bring herself to scold him.
He is her haven now. He was always meant to be. Isn’t that why they had adopted him all those years ago?
Tutu, her oasis!
Basanta Kumari Patnaik (1923-2012) was an Odia novelist, short story writer, playwright, poet and essayist. She completed her MA in economics from Ravenshaw University, Cuttack. She founded the publishing firm Shanti Nibas Bani Mandira along with her brother; it was active from 1959-1962. Her three novels, Amada Bata, Chorabali, and Alibha Chita brought her into the limelight and established her as a writer of formidable skill and insight. Amada Bata was later adapted into a well-recognized Odia film by the same name. She is a recipient of Atibadi Jagannath Das Samman, Odisha’s highest literary award, conferred by the Odisha Sahitya Akademi. She was the first Odia woman writer to be feted with this prize.
Rohan Kar is a writer, translator, and filmmaker based out of Cuttack, Odisha. His short fiction and translation have been published in the Monograph Mag, and in the Usawa Literary Review. He takes a keen interest in things existing at the intersection of images, language, and policy.